From favela to rubbish dump to one of Rio's most expensive areas, all in one day!

Saturday and we were off to minister in the rubbish dumps with three people from a local Iris church. They visit garbage dumps in Rio every weekend to play with children, visit families, pray for those in need and show movies in the evening on a big screen for the community. They even get a street vendor to come and serve popcorn for the kids! So fun!

No one joins them or participates in their ministry, even just to visit, so having 30 of us come with them to the dumps was a dream come true for them. The rubbish dump is apparently now officially closed as Brazil starts to clean up for the 2014 World Cup Football, but people still live there. Being here was was the closest to Africa I think I've seen in the last year of travelling through Central and South America - the dirt, waste, extreme poverty and sense of no hope, and all this just half an hour from Rio. What was sad for our three contact from the local Iris church is that their friends and fellow Brazilians in Rio don't even know that these rubbish dumps exist, let alone think about how the people living there need love to be shown to them to. 

We spent the afternoon going house to house, praying for healing, playing with the kids, riding bikes with the kids and just carrying and loving on the kids, giving them the touch and attention they so need.

Bringing joy to the kids!

By the evening, completely exhausted after a full day of favela, rubbish dump, our day of complete contrasts was not over with one of the girls who'd brought us to the dump took us to her one of family's apartments where we would stay and rest for the rest of our time in Rio. Turns out the apartment would be in a rich area of Rio, not surprising once we found out she is actually a famous Brazilian bikini model, and her dad happens to be Bebeto, a very famous Brazilian soccer player who played a key role in Brazil winning the 1994 World Cup. 

Another surprise for my day, finding a famous Brazilian bikini model who happens to be madly in love with Jesus and passionate about spending her spare time playing with kids in garbage dumps. And now as I write she's in Mozambique sitting in the dirt with the African children while she attends Harvest School, the same missionary training school I did with Heidi Baker in 2011.